


Strings

by ajkal2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Gen, I MADE THIS AGES AGO HOW IS IT CANON, Mind Control, death tw, lil cal being creepy throughout bros life, lil cal squick warning, self harm tw, this may be canon im
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3764935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajkal2/pseuds/ajkal2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You found him when you were small.</p><p>------</p><p>Cal being the cause of the toxic pre-scratch Strider relationship, through Bros prespective. (also Iwrote this back when the claymotion stuff was going on, and its... canon??? how?? (well kinda canon, Bro wasn't as nice))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strings

 

You found him when you were small.

 

You don’t really remember it. He was just a place to sleep then. But the two of you have been together ever since. You vaguely remember the carers at your first home trying to take him away, to separate you, but Cal didn’t like that, so they stopped. Cal doesn’t like many things.

 

He whispers to you, a tiny voice in the back of your head, and tells you secrets, tells you you’re special, you’re his and you and him are going to play a game, play lots of fun games together, and you happily comply, play his games, do drawings of the things he wants you to draw, because he’s Cal and he’s your only friend in the whole wide world and he’s the only friend you need.

 

The first twinkling of doubt, the first idea that Cal could be anything other than your best friend, came when you were thirteen. You were running for the bus, because you need to get back to the shitty care home so Cal doesn’t get angry at you for leaving him behind like you have to, and then you saw all the other kids laughing and chatting with their friends, and your pounding feet stop. You look at them, and you can’t remember the last time you laughed. You wonder what it’s like. You wonder what it would be like to have friends that aren’t puppets. You suddenly want to know what makes other people tick, want to talk with them and see how they work and not think about Cal all the time. You take a tentative step towards the sound of normal children playing. Then something wraps itself around your mind and _twists_  and you fall to your knees, arms wrapped around your head, mouth open in a scream that never comes out and you need to get back and play with Cal and the people are just distractions, worthless things that are lowblooded and slow and perverted and motherfucking blasphemous and maybe you should cull all of them, and make art out with the paint that runs through their veins. You can’t move, and the thoughts running through your head stop as if they know you will break if they keep going, and you stay there, curled up in a ball in the middle of the pavement, face as white as your hair, and you ignore the tears making their tracks down your cheeks and start running. You have a bus to catch.

 

After that, your relationship with Cal changes. You stop thinking of him as a friend. He’s Cal. You get out of the homes, leave school with no idea of what to do with the rest of your life. You stumble into the interests you never had time for as a kid, music and records and making a crowd sway and dance like you’re the one that holds the strings for once. You do alright with that, but Cal makes you make art as well, stuff on the internet that people watch and like and money pours into your account from that, but it’s somehow dirty, tainted, so you never touch it and live in a shitty apartment and eat takeout instead of spending it.

 

One day, you look at Cal the way you learned at 16, the way that lets you see the colours of the people around you. Every other person is one shade, a brown or blue or yellow, but Cal is a whirlwind of bright blood-red and dark purple and a flicker of orange you recognise as yours and a smidgen of deep blue, barely there. He’s a mess of souls,and it hurts you to look at him so you stop, and draw him some more to stop the pounding of his voice in your head.

 

You’ve almost stopped thinking your own thoughts when you find him. He’s so small,just a blob of pale pink and a flutter of white hair and you know that he’s yours to take care of. You slide into the crater he left, picking him up, and he yawns and blinks open bright red eyes and grins at you, and he’s yours. You feel the throbbing in your head start to increase, interested, so you slip a pair shades over his eyes, because you’ve always felt more able to think when you have yours on. He comes home with you. You call him Dave.

 

You know you’re not the best person to raise a kid. Cal wants to be first, is angry when he’s not first, but now Dave has to be first and Cal doesn’t like that. You tell Dave never to take his shades off. He gurgles, and reaches out with his little hand, wrapping his fingers around your thumb. You shake on it, and smile down at him. You feel Cal’s eyes burning into your back. You don’t care. He’s not getting your kid.

 

It happens a few days after you pick up Dave. In those few days, you’ve tested the limits of what Cal allows you to do and gone beyond them, ignoring his whispers and disregarding the pounding in your head. You have a kid now. You don’t draw anything, refuse too, and clear the room that used to be yours of thing you put up because Cal said so. You’ve begun to realise how much of what you’ve done over the last few years has been done because Cal said so. One day, when Dave needs feeding and Cal wants to be put on the counter so he can loom over the hastily constructed cradle and scare the crying child out of his wits, you stop, standing in the middle of the room, and look at Cal.

 

He’s just a puppet. You walk to him, pick him up, and his bright blue eyes say that he needs to go to the cradle. He’s pleased you are paying him attention, finally, instead of the stupid grub. Your face is stone, as unmoving as his. You turn, and walk. The window to your apartment is propped open, but doing nothing to abate the heavy heat. The harsh sunlight glints off your pointed shades. You look at Cal. You look out the window. You think of Dave crying for food in the other room.

 

Cal bounce off the fire escape as he falls, and for the first time in your life that you can remember, you smile out of joy and not because Cal wants you to.

 

Then you go and feed your kid.

 

An hour or so later, when Dave is asleep and you are taking down everything that Cal made you do, humming to yourself as you do, the pounding in your head resurfaces. You rub your forehead, frowning, then choke on a scream as something purple rushes into your head,and that same sensation of _twisting_  you remember accompanied by _tugging_  and _tearing_  and all you can do is scream and you can’t even do that and you don’t even know how he can do this but you need to make it stop stop stop stop. When reality slides back into place you’re curled against the wall, the wall covered with the word honk and HONK and frowning clown faces and three long trails that end where your hand is lying, all painted in bright blood.You go down down down the stairs of the fire escape, blood still seeping from the scratch marks in your shoulders and chest, shaking fingers tipped with bright red, mind in tatters, face blank blank blank as a puppets, because you are a puppet, you’re his puppet, and you don’t know how you could have forgotten. You go out and pick him up, sling him over your shoulder where he belongs. You check on Dave: Still asleep, fine, not hurt, it wasn’t him Cal was angry at. You kind of think he is important for some reason, then the thought drifts away. Cal’s more important. And Cal wants you to clear up the mess that silly old you made. So you wash the walls but forget to dress the scratches. They scar, but you hardly notice the pain because Cal wants you to draw him more pictures.

 

After that, you don’t spend so much time with Dave. He just seems less important, though a tiny voice in the back of your head says you need to protect him, so you teach him how to fight, and when he can’t even get a decent block up and tears stream down his face and he says he can’t, he can’t do this anymore, you just look down at him and get into a fighting stance, even if that voice is screaming at you to let him up and bring him downstairs and stitch up that wound on his arm that you put there and never hurt him again. He needs to know how to protect himself.

 

When Dave is thirteen he gets a game to play with his friends. You didn’t know he had friends, and a surge of jealousy rears its head in your chest for some reason. You strife him, and he earns a wound across his back that he can’t stitch, and you stitch it up for him because the tiny voice begs you too, and because Cal knows that this game is important and he needs to be healthy for it. You get a copy, because the purple says that he’ll need it, and then you do as Cal says you should even when Cal is ripped into little pieces, because you know what happens when you don’t do what Cal says.

 

You go where Cal says you’ll die, and wait for it. The black creature in front of you has a sword stained with blood, and he’s just about to plunge it though you when you hear a voice, look up and see an orange winged Dave with his face twisted and clawed hand reaching for you, and your instincts kick in, deflecting the blade. Orange Dave lands beside you, and takes a sword of his own out of where its stuck through his chest, and you need to protect him, so you fight the demon until green fire rakes the heavens and you can’t fight anymore, because theres a sword through your chest, and then you hear Dave scream and twitch,  but you can’t do anything.

 

The last thing you see is the demon picking up Cal, and you try to summon your voice and warn him, but you can’t because blood is coming up instead of words, and everything goes black.

 

You found him when you were small, and he never let you go.

  
  



End file.
